Thursday, 11 February 2010

Is it really 74 degrees in the caravan?

Two days ago I towed the caravan to my usual spot at Coombe Bissett, just outside Salisbury. On the following evening (yesterday) I attended a dinner date with four other girls - Sue, Dee, Linda and Louisa, all of them UK Angels, and tomorrow I meet up with Debbie (of Debbie K True To My HeART). In between, shopping in Bournemouth and Salisbury.

The dinner was at a Thai restaurant in Salisbury, and was something of a 'Last Supper' for Sue, who is having her surgery next month. Linda was new to me, but I'd met everyone else just before Christmas. We all got on very well indeed. There was plenty to talk about. I was staggered to learn that one or two of the others had been following my blog! I thought my regular following was confined to a faithful half-dozen, the usual suspects (you know who you are). Anyway, it was a great evening out, well worth the effort of hauling the caravan halfway across southern England in winter.

Which brings me to the title of this post. It has been bitterly cold. It hasn't snowed, but it was cold enough to freeze the fresh water tap solid this morning, so that I couldn't replenish my 40 litre barrel until sunset, when the tap had thawed out. It'll ice up again overnight, but hopefully I can eke out the water I've now got until my departure. No onboard shower will be possible, but then, even with hot air blowing into the bathroom in the caravan, I didn't really fancy stripping off when it's so cold outside! At the moment (8:25pm) the thermometer says 74 degrees, but I don't believe it.

I bought a 16-inch digital TV for the caravan this afternoon. It will obviously work fine in normal conditions, but the digital reception high up here on the downs is non-existent tonight, and even the analogue signal is poor. Oh well.

Lucy, you should post some pictures of your caravan, inside and out, to give us some idea of what it is like camping in it. It must be nice, because you seem to use it a lot. I'm sure it beats paying for a hotel room.

The caravan does get snug and warm, especially when the sun's shining during the day, even in winter, because the sunshine can stream in through large double-glazed windows that also give you a panoramic view of the surrounding countryside. I'm up on high ground, so the view is sweeping. But you also get the full force of any cold wind. And the temperature inside the caravan then drops, unless you keep the electric heater on. It usually wins! But if I set the heating control to blow hot air into the little bathroom, it dilutes the heat circulating around the main part of the caravan. So you could have a nice comfortable (even tropical) wash or shower, and then face a ten-degree temperature difference as you step out onto the bath mat. Brrrr!

I'll post up some shots so you can appreciate the setup. Most of the time it's very comfortable indeed!

Stace, that's 74 degrees inside the caravan - I'm sure you realised after you commented! It was close to 0 degrees outside. I wasn't exactly beset by pack ice, but the passing penguins were shivering.

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This is really my autobiography, written as I go along. I'm getting older, more aware of how time is passing, and so much still to do and experience. I want to share what happens to me here, on my blog. I hope you find at least some of it interesting and enlightening.